Chapter 105: Cruise Ship: Someone Underwater?!

Chapter 105: Cruise Ship: Someone Underwater?!

In the end, they still couldn't be stopped...

Watching George and his group disappear at the bottom of the gangway, Everly let out a long sigh. She and Misha moved to a spot with a better view and leaned over the railing to look down.

At the bottom of the gangway, the exploration team members had already boarded the small lifeboat that had been lowered in advance.

For this expedition, the Captain had dispatched a total of five crew members and three filming personnel. Eight people squeezed together like sprouted bean sprouts on the orange lifeboat, paddling toward the front side of the massive cruise ship's hull.

About one-third of the way up the side of the giant cruise ship, on the white metal hull, there was a boarding ladder made entirely of C-shaped metal bars. It extended downward from the deck level, reaching all the way below the waterline.

The outer wall of the giant ship was seven or eight stories tall. Climbing such a ladder was a major undertaking—especially at sea, where the ship's hull could tilt and sway at any moment, further increasing the danger of the climb.

Fortunately, the crew members dispatched by the Mary Jane were all seasoned experts. The most slender of them took the lead, climbing up the metal ladder like a monkey. What would have been an impossibly difficult ascent for an ordinary person took him less than ten minutes to complete.

After reaching the top, the wiry crew member disappeared onto the giant ship's deck for a while. When he reappeared, he pushed out a folding gangway and slowly lowered it down.

Despite having sat on the deck for 13 years, the folding gangway showed no signs of rust or aging. Under the wiry crew member's operation, it extended with remarkable smoothness, reaching all the way down to the bottom of the giant ship.

The remaining seven people rowed the boat to the gangway, tied the lifeboat to the ladder, and climbed up one by one. Then, under the watch of hundreds of Mary Jane passengers, they spent a long time climbing the lengthy ladder before finally boarding the Golden Anchor.

The giant ship was simply too tall. Soon after the explorers boarded, they disappeared from everyone's sight.

The Mary Jane's WiFi signal still hadn't recovered. With no phones to play with, the passengers were bored out of their minds and had basically all flooded onto the deck. Unable to see the exploration progress, they gathered in small groups, excitedly exchanging various bits of ship gossip. Some pulled out their phones and started taking photos and videos with the Golden Anchor as a backdrop.

The entire deck was filled with a cheerful, relaxed atmosphere.

Among everyone there, only Everly wore a worried frown.

The crew had ultimately gone aboard the Golden Anchor after all. She had no idea whether they'd make it back alive, or whether they'd bring something bad back with them. And here she was, stuck in the middle of the ocean with nowhere to run... Whatever. She'd focus on gathering food and emergency supplies first. Whether or not they'd be needed, it was better to be prepared.

So, while everyone else was still immersed in the novelty and excitement of discovering the giant ship, Everly quietly left the deck and headed to the ship's 24-hour buffet restaurant. She grabbed a quick bite, then skillfully pocketed some small snacks like chocolates, candies, and cookies before returning to her cabin. After dropping off her haul and changing clothes, she went back to the buffet.

She made several trips like this. Just before the server at the buffet entrance was about to lose his smile, Everly finally managed to collect enough high-calorie food to last several days.

Next was water. That was simpler—the cruise cabins came with complimentary bottled water, and she could just ask the staff for more whenever she ran out. Embracing the philosophy of "I'm the customer, so I'm the boss," Everly shamelessly asked the housekeeping staff on her floor for an entire case of 24 bottles of mineral water.

She planned to ask for another case tomorrow—well, hopefully she wouldn't be unlucky enough not to live until then.

After collecting food and water, Everly began packing her belongings.

She stuck to one principle: everything important and essential went into her backpack. Both her and Misha's backpacks were waterproof—they could even double as flotation devices in a pinch. Everything else that was optional stayed outside—take it if possible, leave it if not.

Every cabin had life jackets, which was good news. But Everly would have preferred to get her hands on a lifeboat.

Modern lifeboats usually came stocked with some emergency supplies. Adding the bottled water she'd painstakingly gathered would give her a real sense of security. Unfortunately, order was still being maintained on the ship, and the lifeboats were all guarded by crew members—not so easy to get one... Ugh, forget it. If things really got to the point where order broke down, that would be a whole other problem!

This was the first time Everly had ever found herself with no escape route, and her mind was in a state of unusual turmoil. She had to keep herself busy just to pull herself away from that burning anxiety that felt like it was scorching her heart.

She busied herself here and there, all the way until evening, when Misha, who had been keeping watch on the deck, came jogging back to the cabin.

"Everly, something's wrong—one of the crew members got hurt!"

"What happened?"

"Well, it's like this..."

Misha was a social butterfly. In just a few hours of keeping watch on the deck, she'd already become friends with a crew member named Mark. What she shared was a reconstruction based on her own observations and intel she'd gathered from Mark.

The 8-person exploration team had boarded the Golden Anchor around 2 PM. They spent about three hours exploring aboard. By just before 5 PM, Misha, who was stationed on the deck, saw the eight reappear on the gangway.

At that point, all eight explorers were perfectly fine—no one was injured.

However, as they made their way down the long gangway to the lifeboat at the bottom, the last crew member missed a step and fell into the sea—possibly because the first few people had boarded with too much force, shifting the lifeboat's position.

This shouldn't have been a big deal.

For anyone who made their living at sea, swimming was a basic skill. It was late August, the weather was warm, and the water temperature was pleasant. Even if someone fell in, the worst that would happen was getting their clothes wet.

The crew member who fell surfaced, grabbed the edge of the lifeboat with both hands, and kicked his legs beneath the water. Just as he was about to push himself up, he suddenly felt something brush past his foot and bump against his ankle.

"What was that—a red fish?"

The crew member muttered, casually glancing down. His eyes went wide, and a terrified scream burst from his mouth.

"P-P-Person!"

"What person? What's wrong with you?"

His companions on the boat were busy untying the mooring ropes and didn't understand what he meant.

"There's someone—someone in the water staring at me... Aaaah! It hurts! Pull me up, he's biting me!"

The crew member in the water shouted, and in a panic, grabbed hold of the companion closest to him.

The already small boat became violently unstable from his sudden grab. His companions had to crouch down, lower their center of gravity, and struggle to steady the boat before reaching out to the man in the water. Several of them grabbed his arms and pulled.

With three or four people pulling together, anyone should have come out of the water by now. But instead of rising, Dali's body seemed to sink even deeper.

"One, two—one, two—! What's going on, Dali? How did you get so heavy in just a few days?!"

One crew member wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and joked breathlessly.

He was met with Dali's face, twisted in agony.

"It's not me—it's that person—that person down there, he's grabbing me, he's biting my leg, it hurts so much... Help, save me, pull me up!"

The group had just come down from the eerily strange Golden Anchor, and their nerves were already on edge. Hearing Dali's words, they all felt a chill of fear.

Only the cameraman, Gigi, was bold enough to act. He stood at the other end of the lifeboat, too far away to help Dali directly. Curious about the person Dali kept mentioning, he switched on his camera light and aimed it at the water.

The lifeboat was wedged in the gap between the two cruise ships. With the light blocked by both vessels, the area was somewhat dim. The light cut through the murky water, illuminating it. Through the slightly cloudy sea, everyone caught a glimpse of a pale, ghastly figure diving deep into the dark depths like a startled animal, vanishing from sight.

All that remained visible in the water were Dali's thrashing, kicking legs and the wisps of blood seeping from his calf.

With the pulling force from below gone, the group felt the weight suddenly lighten. The Dali they'd struggled to haul up moments ago now came up as easily as lifting a package.

The moment he was on the lifeboat, Dali curled up in the center, clutching his bloody left leg, his forehead covered in cold sweat. A large gash had been torn into his left calf by some unknown creature—so deep that the bone beneath was nearly visible.

There were too few supplies on the boat to properly treat the wound. Combined with the fact that everyone was shaken by whatever was in the water, they sped up and rowed the lifeboat back to the Mary Jane's gangway.

Dali was carried up the Mary Jane by several strong crew members taking turns.

Only after everyone had made it onto the deck did the crew finally have a chance to talk.

"What was that... that thing in the water? Did any of you get a good look?"

"No idea, but it was something big. I thought I saw something that looked like arms and legs... That couldn't actually be a person, could it..."

"Don't overthink it. If it were really a person, there's no way they could hold their breath underwater that long. It must have been some big predatory fish. The arms and legs you saw were just an optical illusion from a school of fish."

The sailors exchanged hushed words, first taking their injured companion to the infirmary along with George and his team, then heading together to the captain's quarters to report on their findings.

That was where Misha's intel from deckhand Mark ended.

As for what they'd actually seen aboard the Golden Anchor—Mark hadn't been in the captain's quarters, so he didn't know.